Small house design: the moves that make ninety square metres feel like more

A good deal of our work is in small houses. Not because we specialise in them but because Brisbane is full of them: workers' cottages of seventy to ninety square metres in Paddington, Red Hill, West End and Woolloongabba, and post-war houses not much bigger. Families live in them, and the ones that feel generous are not larger than the ones that feel tight. They have been planned differently. These are the moves that matter.

Plan the house, then the furniture

Most small houses feel small because they are five rooms of twelve square metres. Taking the internal walls out of the back half and making one room of thirty-five to forty square metres for cooking, eating and sitting is the largest single change available, and in a timber cottage it is ordinary structural work with a beam and a couple of posts. The bedrooms at the front stay as they are. We cover the structure in our note on opening up a Queenslander.

Use the height

Old Brisbane houses have ceilings of 2.7 to 3.2 metres and it is their greatest asset. A room of that height feels twice its floor area. Keep the ceiling, keep it light in colour, run the joinery up to it and let the storage go high. If the roof space allows, a raked ceiling following the rafters in the new living room gains another metre of air at little cost.

Light from two sides

A room lit from one side has a bright end and a dark end and the dark end feels like a corridor. Every main room in a small house should have light from two directions: a window and a door, a window and a skylight, a window and a highlight. Louvres and casements high on the wall bring light in without giving up privacy on a narrow block. Cross ventilation comes with it, which is how these houses were kept cool before air conditioning.

Build the storage in

Freestanding furniture eats a small house. Wardrobes built into the depth of a wall, a linen cupboard in the hall, a bench seat with drawers under the window, a pantry behind a slider, shelves over every door. Built-in storage costs more than a flat-pack cupboard and gives back the floor the cupboard would have stood on, which in a small house is the more valuable thing.

The island is the table

In a kitchen and living room of forty square metres, a separate dining table is a luxury. An island of 2.4 metres or more with an overhang seats four and holds the kitchen's work surface, and the plan needs one less room. When there is a party the table comes out onto the deck.

The deck is a room

The covered deck at the back of a cottage is where a Brisbane family spends most of the year. At the same level as the floor, as wide as the house, with a roof, a fan and a good door, it adds a room's worth of living for a fraction of a room's cost. It also makes the living room feel bigger, because the eye keeps going.

What not to do

Do not add a room on the back with a lower ceiling and a step down; it will always feel like an afterthought. Do not fill the walls with small windows when one large opening would do. Do not put the laundry in the bathroom if it can go in a cupboard on the deck. And do not mirror the walls; a house that is planned for light does not need to fake it.

When to go up or under

If the family has outgrown ninety square metres, the cottage can still be the answer. Raising it and building under gives a whole new level without touching the garden or the character front. An extension to the rear on a deep block does the same in one storey. Both keep the house you bought. A free meeting at the studio is the place to work out which one suits the block.